During final arguments on Thursday, the judge presiding over a historic U.S. antitrust lawsuit against Google attempted to find flaws in the arguments made by both parties as he considered a decision that would drastically alter the technology sector.
Overseeing the first day of final arguments in the most significant tech antitrust case since the U.S. government sued Microsoft in the late 1990s was Judge Amit P. Mehta. Google is being sued by the Justice Department on charges that it has illegally strengthened its monopoly in online search. Google has refuted the allegations.
Mehta contested the government’s claim on Thursday that Google’s hegemony has degraded the quality of the internet search experience. However, he also put pressure on Google to back up its main claim that it isn’t a monopoly because customers use other services like Amazon and TikTok to find music videos and buying items, respectively.
Mehta stated, “It’s doubtful that the typical individual would claim that Google and Amazon are interchangeable.”
Expected in the upcoming weeks or months, his decision may help establish a precedent for other government challenges to the scale and authority of tech firms. In addition, federal officials have launched antitrust cases against Google for internet advertising as well as against Apple, Amazon, and Meta.
Prior to the commencement of closing arguments in a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia courtroom, Google President of Global Affairs Kent Walker was approached for a conversation by Jonathan Kanter, the chief of the Justice Department’s antitrust section.
Mehta started by asking Kenneth Dintzer, the main attorney for the Justice Department in the trial’s courtroom, about inventiveness in search.
The government has maintained that Google does not need to make investments in improving the quality of its search experience because there is little competition in the internet search market, where Google is said to be the source of about 90% of all searches. It would be difficult to “dispute that search today looks a lot different than it did 10 to 15 years ago,” Mehta said to Dintzer, adding that some of that transformation was brought about by Google’s efforts.
Mehta remarked, “It seems like a difficult path for you to follow for me to conclude that Google hasn’t innovated enough.”
The Department of Justice contended that Google had failed to include privacy safeguards into its search engine due to its monopoly status and lack of fierce competition. Dintzer was halted by the court, who mentioned that there might be a “trade-off” between privacy and search quality. Mehta went on to say that his difficulty was determining whether Google had gone far enough in safeguarding user privacy.
Mehta pressed John E. Schmidtlein, Google’s lead litigant, over the claim that businesses like Amazon and ESPN are real rivals to the search engine. He observed that he would probably utilise Google to find out who the Baltimore Orioles’ shortstop was in 1983.
The judge questioned how a different business could surpass Google to become the default search engine for Apple’s Safari web browser. He suggested that it might not be feasible without spending billions of dollars to pay Apple and billions more to develop a rival search engine.
Mehta questioned Google’s need to pay for the privilege of being the web’s default search engine, citing its superior product as more justification.
Schmidtlein provided the judge with a succinct answer throughout their interactions: “Google is winning because it’s better.”
